Kay Scarpetta, leaving behind her forensic practice in South Carolina, takes on a mission in New York, where the NYPD asks her to examine an injured patient in a psychiatric clinic. The patient, Oscar Bain, is handcuffed and shackled, and has specifically requested her. When she finally touches him, he begins to speak, revealing one of the strangest stories she has ever heard. He says that his injuries resulted from a crime... that he did not commit. Is Bain a mentally ill person who has turned against Scarpetta? Or is his paranoid narrative true and he is the victim of the real murderer? All Scarpetta knows for certain is that a woman has been tortured and murdered - and that more violent deaths will follow...